Nevada, USA: Assembly Takes Up Marriage Equality Bill

Last month the Nevada State Senate passed a bill that would start the process to repeal the state’s ban on gay marriage. This week, the Assembly took up the bill. Equality on Trial reports:

In the midst of all these exciting developments, while the state of Nevada may not currently be making national news on the marriage equality front, lawmakers and LGBT advocates there are busy setting the groundwork for a campaign to win marriage rights in the state for same-sex couples. Last night, the Nevada Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections took up Senate Joint Resolution 13, a proposed bill that would repeal Nevada’s constitutional ban on marriage equality and replace it with language supporting equal marriage rights.

During yesterday’s committee meeting, according to the Las Vegas Sun, Committee chairman James Ohrenschall imposed a strict two-minute time limit on all testimony. Opponents of marriage equality–who had said they were given insufficient time to express their views when the Senate took up the bill–were allowed to testify before supporters. One man said that marriage equality would lead to an increase in the rate of diseases; another said than it would indicate the state was “devolving.”

The legislature only has three more weeks left in its bi-annual schedule. If the bill passes this year, it must be passed again in 2015, and then go before Nevada voters in 2016.